Welcome back. As the current World Baseball Classic is proving, even the most legendary, stacked rosters can be humbled at any moment. No one predicted that Japan, the defending champions, would be sent packing in the quarter-finals by Venezuela. And a U.S. team, loaded with offensive and pitching power, being stunned by Italy in pool play was not in the cards.

I couldn't help but find similarities to the private-credit industry. For the better part of a decade, the asset class has moved up and to the right, riding a historic wave of low interest rates. But just as we’ve seen on the diamond this month, the era of predictable dominance is facing a reality check. With retail investors requesting redemptions for interval funds and BDCs at record rates, market sentiment is cooler than it has been in recent memory.

Speaking of credit redemptions, I have a story this morning that explains the eagerness of banks to offer loans to credit-fund managers to help satisfy redemption requests, even as market sentiment sours.

In another story focused on banks and private-credit shops, the Journal's Ben Glickman looks at the row pitting Jefferies against Western Alliance as an example of the perils of close connections between traditional lenders and their upstart cousins.

Finally, WSJ Pro's Yuliya Chernova reports on an unlikely casualty of the Mideast war as Fundrise held back its planned IPO in New York for its Fundrise Innovation Fund venture-investment vehicle.

Please, read on for more…

Investment banks see opportunities to cash in as redemption requests hitting private-credit interval funds and other nonbank lenders drive demand for loans to cover the withdrawals, WSJ Pro's Isaac Taylor reports. Private-credit fund managers sometimes sell assets on the secondary market to satisfy periodic redemption requests from investors, as Blue Owl Capital and New Mountain Capital have recently done. But private-credit shops that run interval funds and business development companies also draw on credit lines extended by banks to cover the outflows. Market participants say banks increasingly want to get in on the nonbank action, despite the recent swells in repurchase requests. However, not all banks are on board, or want to be. JPMorgan Chase & Co. recently said it was pulling back on lending to private-credit providers. It has also cited the surge in repurchases from BDCs and funds.

One lending blowup is showing how America’s banks helped fuel the private-credit boom, and what could happen in its unraveling, Ben Glickman writes for the Journal. Traditional lenders have touted their efforts to get a slice of Wall Street’s newest action. But the details of the exposure are murky, and investors have grown skittish about banks’ connections to private credit this year. A dispute between Southwest bank Western Alliance and investment bank Jefferies Financial Group that spilled into the open this month gives fresh clues to how banks are tied to the type of nonbank lending known as private credit and how messy it might be if trouble gets worse.

Investment platform Fundrise, which has been planning to list its venture-capital fund on the New York Stock Exchange, is waiting for market volatility to die down before pursuing a public listing, WSJ Pro's Yuliya Chernova reports, citing Benjamin Miller, chief executive of the firm. “I’m watching the Strait of Hormuz like everyone else,” Miller said, referring to the vital Mideast shipping lane blocked during the conflict with Iran. The company had been preparing to list its Fundrise Innovation Fund, a venture-investment vehicle with more than $650 million in assets under management and about 100,000 investors. Fundrise would follow Robinhood Ventures Fund I in being a rare publicly listed venture pool.

As more women rise through the industry ranks, they shape not only the cultures of their own firms, but also the industry itself. Join us for a conversation with some of our past and present Women to Watch honorees, as we discuss issues female professionals face building their careers, as well as some of the emerging themes that stand to shape dealmaking as the year unfolds. Register here to join the webinar at 1 p.m. ET March 26.

InCommodities, the Danish energy trader backed by Goldman Sachs, has signed a battery storage agreement with Vena Group in Australia valued at 200 million Australian dollars, or about $141.5 million, Rhiannon Hoyle reports for the Journal. The revenue-share deal covers Vena’s 204-megawatt Bellambi Heights battery energy storage system project in New South Wales, home to the city of Sydney and Australia’s most populous state. Singapore-based Vena is backed by BlackRock’s Global Infrastructure Partners. The investment is part of InCommodities’ expansion plans in the Asia-Pacific region, where power markets are generally less developed than in Europe.

Brookfield Asset Management is providing $370 million to refinance a 517-unit, two-tower residential development in the Gowanus Canal area of Brooklyn, N.Y. The borrowers were Carlyle Group and developer Property Markets Group.

A KKR-backed Australian startup that helps aircraft, ships and other vehicles navigate GPS dead zones has raised $110 million, hitting unicorn status with a valuation of over $1 billion as it seeks to accelerate growth in the U.S. and Europe, Stuart Condie reports for Dow Jones Newswires. Sydney-based Advanced Navigation builds artificial intelligence-assisted hardware that provides accurate location data including in areas where GPS is deliberately jammed, unreliable, or otherwise unavailable. Participants in the latest investment round included AirTree Ventures and Australia's sovereign National Reconstruction Fund.

Private asset manager Capital Dynamics has acquired a 63 megawatt solar power project under development in the U.K. from BayWa r.e., in the third such transaction in as many months. The latest deal involves a planned installation in Hampshire County, southwest of London.

Asset manager Victory Capital in San Antonio sweetened its offer to buy Janus Henderson, whose board last week unanimously rejected the company’s takeover proposal and recommended shareholders back a take-private transaction by Nelson Peltz’s Trian Fund Management and venture firm General Catalyst.

Australia's Macquarie Group has bowed out of bidding for an interest of as much as $7 billion in Kuwait Petroleum's oil pipeline system, citing the widening Mideast war, Reuters reports, citing sources familiar with the matter. Macquarie's infrastructure investment arm pulled the plug on its participation in the process with a notice to the company Friday, a move that suggests the conflict is starting to affect investment in the region.

Oak HC/FT led a $40 million growth investment in pricing and payments services provider Turquoise Health, joined by existing backers such as Adams Street Partners. The company currently services over 280 customers, including major health systems, insurers and drug makers.

Accel led a $57 million growth investment in cybersecurity company Surf AI, an Israeli business that uses agentic artificial intelligence technology to integrate scattered systems and assets into a single "context graph" for monitoring and management.

Idealist Capital led a $50 million equity commitment backing fertilizer producer Solugen, joined by the Canada Growth Fund. The Québec company's Azogen is a fast-release liquid ammoniacal nitrogen fertilizer derived from hog manure and is certified for organic use.

Buyout firm Inverness Graham in Philadelphia has acquired professional training and certification company Axcel Learning from Alpine Investors in San Francisco. Alpine set up the operation in 2022, investing through its AlpineX services business platform. Axcel maintains a library of over 11,000 hours of educational content and currently aims to expand in healthcare and structural engineering and construction.

Oakley Capital is backing French software company Groupe Senef, providing an exit for Isatis Capital, a backer of the business since 2023. Senef specializes in applications for people-intensive services businesses such as commercial cleaning and home care and serves around 2,000 client operations.

Our add-on deal interactive tool allows you to sort and analyze volumes of add-on deal data compiled by WSJ Pro. View more.

Theseus Capital Partners-backed drone technology company Swarmer soared in their trading debut Tuesday, ending with a more than fivefold gain at $31 on Nasdaq. The Austin, Texas-based company develops software used to manage clusters of autonomous military drones. Its technology has been combat-tested in Ukraine. Theseus had a 22% interest in the business heading into the deal. Other backers include Radius Capital with a 6.9% stake.

A bid to buy Pepper Money, a Sydney-listed non-bank lender backed by KKR & Co., has been reduced by prospective acquirer Challenger, which cited "deterioration in both market conditions and the operating environment," according to a securities filing. Wealth adviser and annuities provider Challenger reduced its offer about 13% to about 1.01 billion  Australian dollars, or about $714.4 million. The revised A$2.25 per share bid prompted a 15% drop in the company's shares Tuesday in Sydney, closing at A$1.795. KKR took Pepper Money private in 2017, relisted it in 2021 and remains its majority owner, Reuters reported.

Nautic Partners has sold property management company Akam to Audax Group, which invested through its private-equity strategy. The New York-based company operates there and in Florida markets. Providence, R.I.-based Nautic had backed Akam since a recapitalization in early 2020.

New York-based Seaport Capital is selling Exacom to strategic buyer Motorola Solutions. The company is a provider of cybersecurity services to the public safety industry.

Canadian investor Stephen Smith is set to take a 26.9% stake in the publisher of the Economist magazine, after reaching an agreement with Lynn Forester de Rothschild to buy her family’s long-held shares in the storied publication, the Journal reports. The Economist Group said Tuesday that Smith had agreed to buy the stake alongside his family’s Smith Financial holding company, which has interests in various businesses including proxy adviser Glass Lewis. Bankers had targeted a deal that would value the entire company at about $1 billion, according to a person familiar with the matter.

Thoma Bravo co-founder Orlando Bravo pushed back against comments about weakness in his private-equity firm's software portfolio in a CNBC interview Tuesday, the Journal's Heather Gillers reports. "Our companies are crushing it," he said. "Our companies are incredibly positioned to be winners in the agentic era.”

Specialist private-equity investor Equilibrium Climate Capital has added Rolando Morillo as a managing partner to work alongside Valeria Ramundo Orlando, also a managing partner. Morillo was most recently with Rockefeller Capital Management.

Italian investment bank Equita Group is in late-stage negotiations to acquire Xenon Private Equity, according to reports in Milan. The deal is expected to involve an exchange of shares in Xenon for Equita shares and reflects a consolidation trend in the market, according to newspaper Il Sole 24 Ore.

Main Capital Partners in the Netherlands is combining its majority-owned software companies Cisbox and Millum to establish a single provider of applications used in finance and procurement management. The firm has backed Fornebu, Norway-based Millum since January 2024 and Solingen, Germany-based Cisbox since February of that year.

Shares of private-credit firms such as Blue Owl Capital, Ares Management, KKR & Co. and Blackstone rose sharply Tuesday amid a slowing in the drumbeat of reports on write-downs and withdrawals from private-credit funds, Rob Curran reports for the Journal. Shares of those firms, and of many of the publicly traded public-credit vehicles, are still down sharply for the year to date.

Apollo Global Management is working with Big Board operator Intercontinental Exchange to develop the ICE Private Credit Intelligence service that will provide data on deals and pricing. Anchor partner Apollo is expected to be joined in the effort by other asset managers and capital markets participants.

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